


Home?

by Seasider



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23843320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seasider/pseuds/Seasider
Summary: One-shot. Alone in the forests of the Endor moon, Luke questions the past and the future.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Home?

****He’d never given much thought about what would happen after Palpatine was gone if he (and his father?) was successful. It had been his goal and the Alliance’s aim for so many years (probably as long as he’d been alive) to remove the Emperor. Then what? Maybe High Command had plans; if they did, they hadn’t shared them with him. What he didn’t want to face, though he knew it to be true, was that the war would continue simply because there was no other choice for millions (billions?) of people. No one was going ‘home’, whatever that meant any longer.

He had no home, nowhere to return to even if a miracle happened and the war ended. Now he had the barracks, maybe, if that could be called home. But he would never go back to Tatooine and settle there alone, continuing a meager existence eking moisture from the air and seeing grave markers every time he stepped out. He was only there in his dreams, and even in his dreams he wanted to escape.

Leia had no home, none at all. Alderaan hadn’t been like Tatooine. It wasn’t a nearly uninhabitable dustball; it had cities, farms, culture, people, friends, family— it had been a real world full of real memories and plans and hopes. Now the memories were all that was left.

Maybe she could make a home with Han, but where? On the Falcon? That seemed to be Han’s home. Had Han ever had a place where he had belonged? Chewie had a home, but when was he ever there? Didn’t his family need him? Why had they never talked about this? 

His fellow pilots (the ones who were left)— some of them talked about their homes. But they talked like their homes were in the past and they would never see them again. 

Ben Kenobi… well, he had had a home (if anyone could call self-exile alone in a desert a home). Before that he must have lived at the Jedi Temple. Was that a home? And Yoda… same thing. Hiding for so long— and why? Not just to save their own lives, but to observe the youth who they thought would save their legacy by killing his father.

Inevitably his thoughts turned toward his parents. He didn’t know his mother— not even her name. Why hadn’t he asked Leia? Did she know? He should’ve remembered to ask (somewhere between telling her that he was her brother who might be dead in a few hours and that their father was Darth Vader). Had he told her about Anakin Skywalker? He couldn’t remember. Or had she always known? Why hadn’t he talked to her sooner, after Bespin? Just told her what Vader said, why hadn’t he done that?

Darth Vader.

As long as Luke had known him (known _about_ him) he always seemed to be aboard a ship. Was space his home? If he had homes, if anyone cared about him— was he ever there? And what about…

Anakin Skywalker.

He must have had a home with his wife (lover?). Luke didn’t even know that. But if things had turned out differently, would they have been a family? He and Leia and their parents? Surely they would have had a home somewhere. But Anakin must have lived at the Jedi Temple. Had he been taken from his parents as a young child? Had Yoda? Had Ben? Had his mother lived at the Temple with Anakin? But Jedi weren’t supposed to love, so maybe his parents hadn’t even been close. Maybe he and Leia had been an accident, maybe an embarrassment.

There was good in his father. Anakin was still there. Vader was still Anakin, because one person couldn’t be two. There had to be good (because where could it have gone?). A lifetime of feelings couldn’t just disappear. Besides, he’d felt the good all those times after Bespin when his father had called to him. There’d been no such feeling as they’d battled, though he realized (perhaps even at the time) that Vader was toying with him. Wearing him down. Testing to see if he was worthy. But later, lying in the Falcon, hearing that call, answering _Father!_ without thought, without artifice, just _knowing_ it was true. Then later wondering… had he replied to Anakin?

There was good in his father. He was certain. Maybe not enough to save both their lives. Maybe not enough to save even his son’s life. But if a miracle happened, if Anakin could love— maybe they could make a home. Some day. Somewhere.

If a miracle happened.

 **OooOoo**


End file.
